


stargazing

by stainedglassflood



Series: watford fragments [3]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Carry On Countdown 2019, DEC 13 - Apocalypse, M/M, Mutual Pining, Secret Relationship, Unresolved Angst, Watford Seventh Year, a sort of love-at-the-end-of-the-world vibe, and kissing. for once. i hardly ever write kisses. i prefer to keep them suffering, featuring tragic rooftop brooding, oh it's tragic enough that it sort of almost qualifies as a late submission for, they're not actually doomed they just need therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21821725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stainedglassflood/pseuds/stainedglassflood
Summary: “It’s starting,” Baz said into the sky. “And we don’t get to be selfish.”Simon’s blood was cold and burning.“Is it selfish that I don’t want to hurt you?” Simon pulled Baz back to face him by the shoulder. “That I don’t want you to have to hurt me?”“We’ve never had a choice,” Baz whispered. There was something terrible in his voice, his eyes, something that made Simon want to curl around him and shield him and cling and rage until the rest of the world disappeared. “This is who we are…” Baz brushed a cold hand over Simon’s cheek with something like reverence or fear. He was fighting to keep his voice from trembling. “And I wouldn’t change it.”--Seventh Year AU: As the Mage grows more ruthless and the Old Families more reckless, Simon and Baz have found a secret, fragile understanding in each other and their shared fate in the war closing in.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: watford fragments [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548601
Comments: 7
Kudos: 63





	stargazing

The room at the top of the tower was dark, and the window was hanging open. The night air had swept in past the curtains, drawing some of the tower’s daytime self out. There was an emptiness to that cold, a feeling like the ground falling out from underneath you, something almost ghostly, but where most hauntings said, _You are not_ _alone_ _when_ _you think you are_ , this one said, _You are far more alone than you think_.

This haunting did not say, _The dead walk among us_. It said, _We_ _walk among tomorrow’s dead._

Simon pressed his back to the door and took a deep, shaky breath. The night was ice in his lungs.

The incantation for his sword started to form on his lips, familiar as a prayer, and he bit his tongue. _Not now. Not after everything._

He stowed his wand in his top pocket and crossed to the window, pushing it open as far as it would go. The wind hissed past him, tangling his hair, and he gripped the sill for a moment to steady himself before scrambling out onto the ledge.

The treetops whispered. Waves crashed in the moat far below.

Teeth gritted, Simon pulled himself up and onto the sloping roof.

There was another figure on the roof already, head tipped skywards and forearms draped languidly over his knees like he had no fear of falling. He didn’t look at Simon, but his back straightened a little at his presence.

Simon edged over to him, trying not to knock any slates from the steep roof, and settled about an arm’s length away. “Hey.”

Baz breathed in through his nose, then out. (Always so controlled.) His dark hair lifted in the wind. “Snow.”

Simon chewed his lip. (It was cracked anyway.) “It’s good to see you.” _Basil_.

Baz still wasn’t looking at Simon. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah, but-” Simon looked away, scuffing his heel against the slates. “It’s different. Like this.”

Baz turned his head slightly. His face was in shadow. “Like what, Snow?”

Simon huffed and shifted to face Baz. “ _This_.” He sighed, a faint, tired thing. “You know.” _Don’t make me name it_.

Baz twisted his hands, lacing and unlacing his fingers, then tipped his head back again. Looking out over the woods to the stars. “Are you hurt?” His voice was careful, quiet, cool. “From today?” (No unsteadiness. No softness.)

“Nah, not really.” Simon ran a hand through his hair. “Are you- You seemed-”

“Fine.” Baz looked over at last, scanning Simon coolly. There were deep shadows under his eyes. “Those burns need a _**Get well soon**_ , at least.”

Simon’s breath caught as the magic swept through him – warmth and woodsmoke and burning. Too much and not enough, like a bonfire in a snowstorm.

(He’d told Baz to ask before doing that.)

“Are you okay?” he pressed. “I saw you fall- and the fire-”

Baz made a dismissive little noise. “ _Grimm-Pitch_ , remember? Fire is in my blood.”

“I know,” Simon said. “But- but today was…” He sighed, tugged at his hair, let his head fall back against the cold slates.

Baz looked at Simon through the corner of his eyes. After a few moments, he let one of his hands fall into the space between them. (Not touching. Just existing a little closer than they’d been before.)

“Today is over,” he said quietly. (Not quite a whisper. But soft.)

Simon’s heart stuttered.

He would never get used to hearing the beginning of gentleness in Baz’s voice.

“Yeah. It is.” Simon’s throat was a little rough. Burnt out, like the rest of him. “And now we have the night. And all these stars.”

Baz laughed in a way that normally meant he was about to say something like, _O_ _bservant as ever, Snow_. But then he tipped his head towards Simon and laughed again, faintly. Just breath, really, but Simon could hear the smile in it.

(He knew what that smile looked like. Even in the dark.)

“Did you ever learn the constellations?” Baz asked quietly. “I knew them all when I was little. And half the prophecies that went with them.”

The breeze was playing with his hair. He smelt of smoke and wood and oranges.

“I think we had a book, in that first home. With charts and things. But we couldn’t ever see them.” Simon drew one of his knees up to his chest. “I learnt them at Watford. In first year.” He gazed up and breathed in. “God, I’d never really seen the night sky before that. It’s so much bigger here. _Deeper_. Like something you could fall into.”

“The call of the void.” Baz passed a hand through his hair, setting more loose. “It’s a long way to fall.”

Simon shook his head, still looking up. “You ever dream about that?”

“Falling?”

“Into the sky. Drowning in it.”

Baz shook his head. “I-” He bit his lip. “If I dream about the dark, it’s… being buried, or-” He broke off, smoothing a hand down the leg of his trousers. Then he looked over at Simon. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

The wind picked up, numbing Simon’s face, and he squared his shoulders against it.

“Neither have you,” he said. “We never do.”

Baz held Simon’s gaze. The wind was whipping his hair around his face. “What have you been dreaming about, to keep you from sleeping like this?”

Waves crashed and hissed in the moat. Somewhere below the surface, the merwolves were howling.

“Do you dream of monsters?” Baz whispered. “Of the Families? Of the war?”

Simon stared back at Baz. There was a cold hand in his chest, holding his heart too tight. Baz’s eyes were soft and dark and shining.

“Do you dream of me, Simon Snow?”

_Do you still fear me like you should?_

Simon opened his mouth, but no words came. He bit his lower lip, tasting blood, then slowly reached over and placed his hand carefully on top of Baz’s. (His skin was so cold.)

Baz turned away, gazing at the horizon, but after a moment he turned his hand over, and laced his fingers through Simon’s.

“It’s starting,” he said into the sky. “And we don’t get to be selfish.”

Simon’s blood was cold and burning.

“Is it selfish that I don’t want to hurt you?” Simon pulled Baz back to face him by the shoulder. “That I don’t want you to have to hurt me?”

“We’ve never had a choice,” Baz whispered. There was something terrible in his voice, his eyes, something that made Simon want to curl around him and shield him and cling and rage until the rest of the world disappeared. “This is who we are…” Baz brushed a cold hand over Simon’s cheek with something like reverence or fear. He was fighting to keep his voice from trembling. “And I _wouldn’t change it_.”

“None of it?” Simon’s voice was raw. “We could try- You could run away-”

Baz’s hand dropped. He looked tired. “Would you?”

“I…” Simon swiped his hand against his eyes roughly. “I just… don’t want…”

Baz closed his eyes and let out a long breath through his nose. “It’s not about want. It’s our duty.” His forehead dipped towards Simon’s, dark hair falling loose. “I can’t walk away from who I am.” He swallowed. “What I am.”

Simon leaned closer, reaching up to cup Baz’s face, and stroked his thumb along the fragile skin of the shadow under Baz’s eye.

He could feel the dark surrounding them, could feel the cold stars overhead and the long fall under their feet, and it was terrible and heartrending and wrong, but it was true.

He didn’t have it in him to argue. He just didn’t have the words.

“Simon Snow…” Baz whispered, and shook his head. “This is all we get.”

There were tears flowing down Simon’s cheeks and gathering in his eyelashes, burning in the cold.

He took Baz’s face in both hands, closed his eyes, and kissed him.

Baz gasped against his lips – maybe a sob – and kissed back. One of his hands gripped Simon’s wrist, pressing softly against his pulse, and the other held his neck.

Baz stroked the short, half-shaven hair at the back of Simon’s neck, hand shaking.

Simon shivered, and pulled Baz closer.

He could taste blood, and he didn’t know if it was from his split lip or on Baz’s breath, and he didn’t care. There was so much worse coming than this.

They could do so much worse to each other than this.

Baz pulled back, eyes tight shut, chest heaving, and pressed their foreheads together.

Simon kissed his cheeks and tasted tears.

_Do you dream of me?_

The stars shone cold far overhead. Baz pressed his face into Simon’s neck, fragile and desperate. His lips were soft. His breath felt like the wind, his tears like the rain.

Simon hid his face in Baz’s hair, trying not to sob, and breathed him in.

_This is all we get._

_This is all we get._

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. oof these fragments were meant to be under 1000 words each but then this happened sorry  
> 2\. turns out this is actually the first kiss scene i've written... ever... so please be nice! i don't know how this works!  
> 3\. [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IGrZ74vS3A) is a great song for brooding on rooftops just saying  
> 4\. a note on the tragedy here: despite them both being in a pretty dark place here, there absolutely IS a way for them to move past their conflicted loyalties and manipulative parent figures and so on. there's always a way. and obviously, you can still imagine this ending tragically if you like - that's half the point of making this contextless - but i want to be clear it doesn't *have* to.  
> thank you for reading 🖤🖤🖤


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